The reason he could tell that he was inside the house he had just been looking at, was that through the window he could see the corner of the street where he had been standing. Though one thing was different - there was grass in the cracks of the cement, and a light pole standing in the corner that was not there before.
He looked around. Though old and worn, the interior of the house appeared to be fully decorated right now, with all the furniture that would indicate its being a normal house in its normal condition.
"An illusion?" Wu Xiaoming thought to himself. This wouldn't be new, the time he had entered the "Wandering Dream" was itself an illusion while he was inside of the ethereal realm. Based on that experience, there should be some way of breaking out. He just needed to find the equivalent of the Mo-sin-a's fragmented soul.
He walked into the kitchen - because everything he saw from the exterior of the house indicated some kind of fire having happened here. The stove used electricity instead of gas, and was not being used right now. On the wall hung a metal pan, a pot and a grill cleaning brush. On the left side of the stove close to the wall was a box with three kitchen knives handles sticking out. He walked over and pulled one out - it was just like a normal kitchen knife, but neither the blade nor the edge was sharp. Instead, it was more like a piece of flat metal with no edge at all.
He still took the one with the longest blade - he desperately needed a bladed weapon that was not too expensive or too harmful to use. The morningstars were nice, but different weapons for different scenarios.
If the kitchen was not the source of the fire, then it could be electrical fire from one of the living rooms or the bathroom.
The bathroom was empty, nothing obviously wrong with any of the outlets. The small bedroom on the ground floor checked out as well, as aside from one small lamp nothing else was plugged in.
He continued his search upstairs. Another question arose in his mind - there seemed to be no one in this house at all, for all this time everything was simply too quiet. If there was no one in this house, what could have caused this illusion?
The stairs creaked as he walked to the second floor. The carpet was dirty, and the handrails on both sides were slightly worn. All the right signs of an older house.
The first room was to his right - it was a child's bedroom: small bed with pretty pink beddings and pillow, colorful wallpaper and a pretty pink table. He opened the closet, it was filled with children's clothes: dresses, pants, tops and a few hats. Nothing seemed like it would cause a fire. The small bathroom to its side was clean and empty, the electric outlets in which were all covered in child-proof covers; two towels were on the hanger, one pink, one red; behind the window stored a cup, one toothbrush and one vial of children's toothpaste. No obvious cause of fire either.
A small home office sat between the child's room and the main bedroom. At the center of the office was a black desk with a big computer screen on it and a tall office chair; on its side was a black bookshelf holding several thick folders and a few books. The window was behind the chair, but the curtains were closed.
Wu Xiaoming walked over to the window and pulled the curtains open. Through the window, the scenery outside was normal - in the sense that it looked like the house was not in the ethereal realm, with natural, physical realm lighting, and things like fallen leaves, grass and even flowers. No signs of humans but still a somewhat normal view of a maintained, living residential area.
Out of curiosity, he grabbed a book from the shelf - it wouldn't open. The entire book was one solid piece. He grabbed another, this time the cover would open but all the pages were one piece with the back cover - it was as if the entire body of the book was one white, blank paper brick.
The other books and folders were the same - either they wouldn't open, or they contained bricks of blank paper inside and contained no meaningful content at all.
This could mean only one thing - whoever or whatever that created this illusion was not familiar with the books.
He walked out and into the main bedroom, in theory this would be the room of the parents.
At the center was a big bed - wide enough for two adults and maybe a child. Light brown sheets and quilt. Two nightstands were placed at both sides of the bed, with two identical night lights on top.
He walked over and pulled one of the drawers, it simply did not open. He tried another, and another - none of the drawers would open. There went the hope that the parents would hide a gun in the nightstands.
He lowered his body to look under the bed. But there seemed to be no space there at all - the frame of the bed drooped down to the ground, blocking his view completely. He knocked on the wood, and got only very low thuds - sounded like it was an entire piece of thick wood instead of just a frame with room behind it.
He stood straight, then crouched down a little, with both his hands on the bed frame. He grunted as he tried to lift the bed up. But hard as he tried, the bed was not even up by one bit - it was as if it was bolted to the ground.
A lightbulb lit up in his head. He came back to take a look at the closet. He pulled on the closet door - it wouldn't open. He took a deep breath, then used his full force on it - it still wouldn't budge, even the fragile looking door handle did not change shape at all.
"Damn. " Wu Xiaoming shook his head. He checked the bathroom in the main bedroom: spacious, clean. No towel or other cleaning supplies. He ran out of the room without any hesitation. Whatever the "thing" was with this illusion, it must be in the child's bedroom.
Colorful and empty, just like the last time. Only this time, Wu Xiaoming came with much more preparedness and attentiveness.
The first place he looked was under the bed. It was dark, and though there was some strange eeriness, he was not ready to just engage whatever spirit that had been hiding here yet. He looked around in the room, making sure there was no other corner he did not check out, before he went up to the closet.
He opened up the closet and began pulling the clothes out. Dresses, jeans, tops, hats, and one bicycle helmet. Beneath the clothes were boxes of other things - small pillows, small blankets, and - dolls.
A whole box of dolls - old ones as well. Wu Xiaoming pulled the box out of the closet using his leg - it was almost common sense at this point that in situations concerning spirits and ghosts dolls were bad news.
There was no other tool he could use, so he just pulled out the edgeless kitchen knife to "pick up" the dolls in this box.
The first one was a dolphin doll, made of cloth and soft stuffing. He could not see or sense anything wrong with it, so he just flipped it onto the floor with the blade.
The second one was a cartoon cat in a pink dress, simple, emotionless looking, black balls of thread as eyes on its white, mouthless face. Nothing obviously wrong with it, so onto the floor it went.
The third was a plastic doll with a removable toy nightgown. Half of its blonde hairs were lost, its nightgown suffered a few tears and one small cut - seemingly from an unsuccessful attempt at restyling it. Some red and purple ink marks remained on its face - failed attempts at makeup, maybe. But still nothing felt wrong, so it went onto the floor.
The fourth one was a rag doll. The hair was made with strips of black cloth, the eyes were made with buttons, and the mouth was made with two strips with different shades of red. The doll was supposedly wearing a dress - a blue and green one, put together with pieces of rags. As Wu Xiaoming flipped it over inside the box, the sketchy sewing marks on the back with black and dark red threads revealed themselves.
Wu Xiaoming frowned, then flipped this doll onto the ground along with others. He turned back to the remaining toys inside the box. But before he actually used the kitchen knife to check on another doll, he ran his left palm along the blade, coating it with a thin layer of golden light energy.
"Hyah!" He turned back at the rag doll as swiftly as he could and sunk the blade into the rag doll's head.
Black smoke arose from the rag doll's head. At the very next moment, a deafening screech exploded from its chest. A humanoid creature with crooked, tree-branch-like limbs and tree-bark-like skin shot out and burst into the height of two grown men. Wu Xiaoming leapt backwards and rolled on the ground, a beam of golden light shot from his left hand.
The beam hit the creature on its chest. At the same time, a loud boom came from below, a ball of fire blew through the ground and swallowed the creature in whole. The house shook, windows and even walls cracked and the entire floor went visibly brighter.
"What the - " Wu Xiaoming almost coughed from the intense heat wave. And before he realized, the entire building was on fire.